


A Million Miles Away (Or Just a Mile Up the Road)

by EllieMurasaki



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: spnquotefic, Episode: s05e22 Swan Song, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-16
Updated: 2010-06-16
Packaged: 2017-10-10 03:57:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/EllieMurasaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's afraid to go home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Million Miles Away (Or Just a Mile Up the Road)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Sam, "You're scared to go home."
> 
> Title from "Who Says You Can't Go Home?" by Bon Jovi and Jennifer Nettles (lived a million miles of memories on that road).

Home is where the heart is.

Home is where your rump rests.

A house is made of walls and beams; a home is made of love and dreams.

Home is not where you live, but where they understand you.

It doesn't actually matter what cliché Sam uses. Home is the report of a shotgun and the crackle of flame. Home is the hum of an engine, the rattle of a vent, the beat of a drum and an electric guitar. Home is sitting in a dining room in Indiana, serving—from Sam's vantage point he can't tell what Dean's serving, but it's colorful and came out of a wok and there's white stuff to go with it. Stir-fry and rice, maybe, or pasta primavera. Dean's always been a good cook, when they had the money to buy minimally-processed food and a kitchen to cook it in.

Sam could walk through the door. Sit through the salt and holy water and silver and iron and exorcism and holy fire and whatever else Dean can think of to throw at him; Sam knows he'll pass all the tests because he already tried them all on himself. There are three white lines and a burn scar just below his left elbow; they're the only marks he's got, bar the flaming pentacle over his heart and the Enochian script across his back. The anti-possession tattoo is the same design, but a different artist, so it doesn't match Dean's anymore, and what are the odds that his ribs aren't as shiny new as the rest of him?

Sam could walk through the door. Cling to his brother the way a drowning man clings to a life raft. Stay a while, maybe, if Lisa's willing. Find somewhere that's willing to hire somebody with no work history and no willingness to undergo a background check. (Dean kept the identity the angels set up for him for Sandover. Sam didn't.)

Sam could walk through the door. Hit the road with Dean, back to their appointed task of keeping the world safe for the sane, or leave Dean with Lisa and Ben and take all the shit on himself. Either way, turning over the rock that's Dean's new life so all the bugs and worms come crawling out from underneath.

Sam could walk through the door.

Sam could.

Sam wants to walk through that door more than he can remember ever wanting anything.

Sam would rather face down Lucifer again than walk through that door.

(Sam checks: the jury-rigged lock on the cage, turning Lucifer's and Michael's grace into stronger cage bars so it can't be used as wrecking balls, is holding firm.)

Dean washes the dishes while Lisa checks Ben's homework. Lisa turns on _Criminal Minds_ in the living room. Dean goes back to the kitchen and stares at the liquor cabinet. Lisa follows him, holds him, tucks her head under his chin. Dean puts his arms around her, but his heart's not in it, Sam can see that clear as day.

Seeing Dean take from Lisa, however unenthusiastically, what Sam shouldn't, won't, can't give him...Sam has to turn away. He doesn't leave—he can't bear to leave, not yet, he'll see Dean in the morning and then he'll leave—the Impala's in the driveway and when Sam tries the door it isn't locked. Sam curls up in the back seat. This isn't home, he can't go home, he has no home, he wants to go _home_...

"_BACK IN BLACK, I HIT THE SACK, IT'S BEEN TOO LONG, I'M GLAD TO BE BACK_—" Sam smacks at the thing in his ear, connects with a cord, fumbles till he finds the buttons on his iPod and gets the damn thing off, and without the music at top volume he can hear someone else breathing. Familiar sound. _Home_ sound. Sam's breath hitches, comes faster, and there are two hands on his shoulders and a reassuring murmur in his ear soothing him through the panic but he still can't open his eyes.

"Sammy, come on, look at me. Sam."

Sam gets a lungful of air and forces his eyes open. His right sleeve's shoved up past his elbow, where there are two new cuts, beading blood, and a few grains of salt and a couple drops of water next to a red patch already smeared with aloe. (He hasn't been sleeping well, but he slept through all that?) Next to that arm is a denim sleeve, and attached to that sleeve—

"Welcome back to the land of the living," Dean says. "You were planning on telling me you came home, right? You weren't gonna nap in the car and take off?"

Sam looks down. "You weren't supposed to know."

"Oh you self-righteous little bitch."

Sam snorts, feeling his mouth twist up without prompting. "Missed you too. Jerk." Sam sits up, tugging Dean into the car, and pushes them both around until he's satisfied with the arrangement, Sam as Dean's pillow and Dean as Sam's blanket. They don't fit, at all, but Dean isn't protesting and Sam can't be bothered to care.

Home sweet home. Why was he so afraid?


End file.
